There's so much to say about each part of the Easter Triduum. I left out many small reflections for each day, but would love to talk about any and every element of this time with you, should you so desire. Just let me know!
Part 1 - Holy Thursday
It's a predictable refrain this year: "This whole year has been Lent." I've written it here. Other contributors have articulated something similar, albeit better than I. I saw Holy Week and the Easter Triduum coming from miles away, it seemed, with planning and scheduling; I yearned for it, even; yet somehow I'm left reeling that this night I am suddenly here in the thick of it. Perhaps it's because were in this liminal space of not being totally in lockdown like last spring, but not being wholly "normal, either; this place of limbo can be distracting and tiring.
There are more pressing things, I suppose, than pondering how we got here, such as engaging and being present to it the best I can now that it's arrived. So I'll get to that, and I will offer reflections for these days of the Triduum as well. First, though, I want a minute to acknowledge the sadness of another very different celebration of these most holy days of our calendar.
I miss the richness of the liturgy. This year is better in many ways than last year, to be sure! But there was no real celebration with palms here; I saw no washing of feet; no transitus of the Blessed Sacrament to a tabernacle/altar of repose with the congregation in tow. I am sure I will see more in the next few days, such as not venerating the same cross as those with whom I have gathered to pray. I am grateful that I am still able to celebrate this Triduum Liturgy across these three days in person as opposed to last year, that even last year the truths they celebrate are true even if I can't be physically present at the liturgy. I grieve the temporary loss of these moments, though, that have engaged my senses as well as my heart and mind and assisted me in fully active and conscious participation.
And yet perhaps this time deprived of these smaller moments is one the Spirit might make an opportunity, should I be able to cooperate.
To be succinct for tonight, a Taize chant that has haunted me from the moment I first heard it is "Stay With Me". Just look it up on Youtube as "Stay with me taize" and you'll find it. This year, the impassioned, persistent plea of Christ comes to me all the more urgently through the words: "Stay with me. Remain here with me. Watch and pray!" In this unusual time when things are so clearly not ideal, what does it mean to stay with Christ? The chant refers to his charging his disciples to keep watch and pray while he prayed at Gethsemane. And yet I also hear in it Christ's exhortation from John's Last Supper discourse to remain in him, that we bear fruit. How do I stay with him? What does that look like particularly now in these holy days, but as the Easter season unwinds as well? I have no novel or ground-breaking reflection here; only the Lord's gentle, loving, but insistent reminder to me that apart from him I can do nothing.
Who do I need to forgive? Who do I need to serve? What does it mean to empty myself, to forget any pretense of status, to lovingly minister fully aware of others' ugliest tendencies?
May we stay with you and remain in you, Lord, watchful and alert. Help us to cling to you, especially when fear tempts us back to the ways of greed and self-interest, suspicion and uncharity, gossip and detraction, vanity and superficiality. Help us to bear great fruit.
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